1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an arrangement for treating shrimp prior to their being packaged and distributed to the retailer/consumer.
2. Prior Art
In the shrimp processing industry, shrimp come in a large master carton weighing about fifty pounds, the carton containing ten five pound blocks of ice containing shrimp frozen therein. These frozen blocks of shrimp are loaded into a circulating tank to thaw. Those shrimp are then put on a screen table to permit them to drip dry.
The shrimp may then be soaked in a pre-batter for about an hour as a batch process, and then they are manually laid out individually, on a "pre-duster" conveyer belt. Once they have been predusted, they generally are individually manually realigned to a separate conveyer belt, so that butterfly shrimp may be spread out for breading and battering. As these shrimp are individually set out on the conveyer belt, a number of people are required to keep the shrimp in longitudinal alignment with the conveyer belt.
Once each of the individual shrimp have gone through the conveyer assembly for the batter, the dusting and breading, their tails may each be manually individually cleaned so as to remove the breading and batter and dusting therefrom.
The shrimp are then again, manually, individually placed in individual spaces on trays where they are frozen in a further package for shipment to the retailer/consumer.
The processing of food stuffs such as this, has yet to be fully mechanized. One such invention for processing food is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,494, 277 to Tolley et al., showing a device for holding a single crab during a processing thereof.
One other patent to Betts, U.S. Pat. No. 4,439,893 shows a conveyer system which transmits shrimp's bodies to a vertically arranged wheel having cammed gripping devices which enable the shrimp to be deviened. The shrimp, it is noted, in this patent, are placed on the conveyer line manually, into their trough-like supports for such processing.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an arrangement for improving the processing and shipping of foodstuffs such as shrimp, so as to minimize the manual labor involved.
It is an object of the present invention, to provide an arrangement which will keep multiple foodstuffs such as shrimp, properly aligned during a multi-stage process applied to the foodstuffs, and during subsequent handling/shipping thereof.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an arrangement for handling foodstuffs such as shrimp, which will minimize wastage of any of the material which is applied onto those foodstuffs, such as shrimp or the like.